Pattern-chaser

I think the choice of political systems is a little more than just two! :smile: A critical part of this choice is the balance between society/communit...

Sincere and honest with ourselves? Such people are as rare as rocking-horse sh*t! :wink: My own best attempt at honesty says I'm here to enjoy myself,...

The 1% work only for themselves, and maybe a little for those like them. They fix nothing. It's us that fix things, on their instructions. They have t...

Fair question. And the topic specifically addresses illegal drugs, but are you accounting for legal drugs? Alcohol is the obvious example. If your que...

You're offering logic and common sense? What are you thinking? :wink:

Off-topic, I admit, but: not many people here need help with knowledge and science. :chin:

? You were there, to record and measure it? That's what empirical evidence is, yes?

You're using it consistently with common everyday usage. In a discussion of scientific method, "verify" is the complement of "falsify".

To verify something, we confirm it is true, literally. We don't increase our faith in its correctness, we confirm its correctness. Which, in scientifi...

No, I don't think we are. What you describe as verification is actually failure-to-falsify. Verification is an infinite act, as I described. You need ...

There is only one threshold value for certainty: 100% or probability 1. Not 99.9999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% and not probab...

And from this, you are happy to assume that every effect has a cause? Reasonable, for sure, but not philosophically rigorous. You can't see another wa...

Think about it for a moment. To falsify a theory, you only have to show it doesn't work in one set of experimental circumstances. Easy. But to verify ...

What is your justification for this?

And that's how we should 'do' philosophy? With logic, and nothing else?

Demonstrate how anything can exist with a (first) cause! The thing is we don't understand this stuff. We're trading theories, none of which can be sub...

:up: An idea is dependent for its existence on the minds which contain it.

And I went from forcibly religious - I was raised Roman Catholic - until I was able to choose for myself. Thereafter I was (unthinkingly) atheist, the...

There, I fixed it for you. Science and the scientific method do not deal with verification, only falsification. Some people see that as one of its dra...

I'm saying that I'm a believer (but not a Christian ;)). And before that, I was claiming not to deny or believe-against the evidence. OK? :smile: A gu...

To all of those questions, no. And yet feminism focusses on the position into which women have been forced by men. Masculinism (if I may call it that)...

No, I'm not black. I'm very conventional: elderly white cis male, retired techie, from England.

Hmm. And yet *I* am that foolish.... :wink:

Thanks. :up: And are you suggesting that this book tells us how to 'do' philosophy, or have I got the wrong end of the stick?

That Feynman quote is my constant guide, here, in philosophy, and elsewhere too. A closed mind is a dead mind, I suspect. :wink:

IMO, all of us philosophers (and all of us scientists too) should repeat this to ourselves at least once a day. :up: :smile: #ThoughtForTheDay

That's not how I read the QM explanation of the Big Bang. But maybe I misunderstood. That's complicated stuff. But how did the anti-matter mostly disa...

Quantum foam? :chin:

Assertion is not proof.

I have been trying to be more constructive than this, to illustrate my point, but now I am reduced to: Prove it!

I'm afraid that will only make him worse. In the end, we have only this: Don't feed the trolls!

Worse: there is no "American English", only the American language. English is the language spoken by the English, who live in England.

Nicely put. :up: :smile:

...while I don't think that my understanding of time is sufficient to justify a cause for it. Or not.

Yes, just as I believe something that I also know. But that's just my opinion. :smile:

And yet you refer to a "first cause"? :chin:

Only if cause and effect applies in this scenario. You're speculating, then cherry-picking the bits of logically-derived stuff (and maybe some illogic...

Agreed, but saying so does not make it logical. You begin your speculations with an assumption. Very fitting. :wink:

Me too. :up: My concept of (say) justice is non-material, but it exists. It doesn't exist physically, of course, but you didn't mean that, did you?

Your suggestion of God (and Her existence) is not logically derived from anything.

Unwilling? Or unable? Here is a recent interchange I had on Twitter: Tweeter 1: The Tories said privatisation of the railways would give us "better, m...

Although you have not - probably wisely - defined what God is, I see no reason to assume She is bound by the same constraints that apply to us humans....

No, you don't. I'm not sure I do either. But the scenario you present is speculative in its every aspect, to the point where it seems difficult to mak...

Can you "discover" something that is non-physical? Mathematics is not part of the scientific space-time universe, except trivially. How could you "dis...

Here's a link to an article I just found on Aeon magazine, entitled "Philosophical writing should read like a letter". It seemed relevant to this disc...

No more than I am happy that the ground I'm standing on is made of stone. Neither is in my control; I simply accept them, as I must. What other option...

I don't think that's clear, one way or the other. I think it's obscured by prisons, and the politics that drives their use. America - and many of the ...

I think capitalism, especially in its American flavour, along with continuous-growth economics, has lead to our destruction of the world. Greed prevai...

And I wonder if theorising, in this sense, is the same as art? I.e. if the artist says it's art, then it is. Our bit is to judge it (for ourselves!) t...

I think bodily death is irreversible and unavoidable. I like to think it's possible for some (non-physical) part of me/us to continue afterward, but t...